Judge erupts at Trump’s lawyers for wasting time with ‘ridiculous’ repetitive questions aimed at Trump Organization’s ex-accountant

by Latkatume

30 comments

  2. Why do these guys keep pissing off the judge so much? They do know this is a bench trial, right?

  3. IMO the motivation here is to make this trial part of his campaign. Twice a day he gets full media coverage and gets to speak just like the “helicopter” pressers he did when in office. He gets to air out his grievances and play victim. Likewise when the Judge is frustrated and asserts himself with the defense in any way, it will be reported in minutia and used in his “rigged trial, crooked judge out to get me” spiel. The No jury thing is by design as well. He knows a New York jury would nail him to the wall, doing this way and just pretending it is being denied is enough for his followers to believe. Doesn’t really matter what the truth is in the court of public opinion..

    The conspiracy theory is self sealing at this point.

  4. >A short while later, Suarez went through the financial statements for each year of Bender’s more than a dozen years of involvement with the Trump Organization and started asking the same questions about each of them.
    >
    >”We’re not going to go through each year, are we?” Engoron asked. “No, I’m not going to let you do that.”
    >
    >Engoron asked Bender whether his answer “would be the same for each year.” When Bender said yes, Engoron asked Suarez to move on.
    >
    >”What’s the difference?” Engoron said. “Jesus.”

    I mean, yeah…

    Yeah, that kind of seems dumb and unproductive.

  5. slow-walking the case! to what end? maybe to bore the daylight out of the judge and then piss them off even more for wasting their time.

    this sensible plan it is not.

  6. I’m certainly not excusing Trump’s lawyers, that being said, Judge Engoron must know by now that these lawyers are NOT all that smart.

  7. Trump will spin this as “corrupt judge won’t even let us ask the real questions”

  8. Flooding the zone with shit is what they’re doing.

  10. Did you wake upon the third of May?

    Yes.

    Did you wake up on the fourth of May?

    Yes.

    Did you wake up on the fifth of May?

    Yesss.

    Did you wake up on the Sixth of May?

    Judge pulls out nickle plated gavel, “Ask about the seventh day of May, I dare you. I double dare you, motherfucker!”

  11. “There’s no jury, I don’t know who they’re performing for.”

    Damn, shoulda checked that jury box on those legal papers .. hack.

  13. Pro tip for Donald: Aldi makes you deposit a quarter into their carts.

  14. They are fighting with the judge to satisfy the client and because they do not know what they are doing

  15. >Eric Trump, who runs day-to-day operations at the Trump Organization, peered ahead from the ~~audience gallery~~ kids’ table

  16. So… there is no jury. Which means the buck ultimately stops either the judge. And the trump thinks it is wise to annoy and get on the wrong side of the judge?

    His lawyers already screwed up for not requesting a jury and now this… this case is a good example of the skit “good idea, bad idea” where all that trumps team does is bad idea.

  18. The lawyer is going to bill per hour so there is that.

    Of course Trump isn’t going to pay them so there is that too.

  19. They are behaving exactly like Trump would behave if he defended himself. Stupidly. .

  20. “At one point Wednesday morning, Suarez pulled up a list of 200 corporate sub-entities of the Trump Organization — many of them appearing to be corporations for particular apartments — and started asking the same set of questions about Bender’s work on each one.”

    This is my favorite. What company on this planet needs 200 LLCs as part of their business in real estate besides people committing fraud? Is that normal for more expensive apartments?

  21. After reading the judge’s quotes, I didn’t get an eruption vibe from them. Maybe an annoyed/slight anger vibe. But eruptions are violent and chaotic and nothing really felt like that.

  22. Thank goodness Trump and his lawyers are assholes. Pissing off the judge, regardless of the type of trial, is never a good tactic.

  23. The lawyers are attempting to bait a reaction from the judge to then claim bias in the media, which they hope will lead to enough outcry that an activist conservative judge somewhere intervenes in their favor on appeal.

  24. I’m a trial lawyer. I’ve tried three jury trials to a verdict in the last two months, after a lengthy Covid break that we are just working our way out of. It’s terrifying to have a judge breathing down your neck when you have a pre-planned set of cross-exam questions and you have, in theory, planned out what you are doing weeks in advance.

    On the other hand, this is time-wasting. I can only assume Trump’s team has ulterior motives to drag this out as long as possible to, I guess, hope the media will get bored and move on.

    One of the consequences of Trump’s rise is that we, in the law, saw a lot of low-lives start imitating his tactics. Whether it was in the discovery process, at trial, or just a general bullying tone that crept into what had otherwise been civil if adversarial proceedings previously. Monkey see, monkey do, I guess.

    I hated it. I hate Trump. Not because of his politics (which I’m probably pretty aligned with) but because of how he treats people. He poisoned our society and it is really, really nice to see that fever dream start to break — to see honesty and decency to others actually start to be valued and rewarded again. Trump is the ultimate example of the 80s “greed is good” mantra.

    Well, greed is not good. Greed will corrode your soul and eventually get you in trouble. And it’s time the rest of the world saw Exhibit A come tumbling down. We are better than Donald Trump.

  25. Did I hear right that Trumps lawyers ACCIDENTALLY didn’t check a box for a trial by jury? Are they really that incompetent? This is a horrible mistake, right?

  26. I am staring to realize how much I am going to enjoy the next year.

    Trump losing his assets, proud boys going to jail, Republican Party imploding. This is more fun then watching football on the weekend

  28. Hold them in contempt and actually put them in jail for it, as would happen to any one of us (or our lawyers).

  30. I like that Engoron knew that reporters would phrase his actions in the the same way they had on the first day of the trial:

    “This is ridiculous. For reporters, I’m pounding the bench again,”

    I have a feeling they’re going to need to replace that bench by the end of the hearing.

Leave a Reply